For the initial studies on L(Y)SO:Ce scintillators coincidence resolving times (CRT) better than 80 ps FWHM could be achieved using silicon photomultipliers, representing best ever measured results for the dimensions of the scintillators. Furthermore, for the first time a hybrid approach using a combination of scintillation light and an additional Cherenkov emission could be applied for this class of radiation detectors using the scintillator BGO. Also these experiments resulted in best ever reported timing performance of BGO. New technologies in photon detection, i.e. the digital silicon photomultiplier, made it possible to extract precise time information in the ps-domain out of just a few photons. Given these results, BGO offers several advantageous characteristics when compared to L(Y)SO:Ce, e.g. better stopping power and lower cost. Furthermore, the timing performance could be even further improved by applying the even lower-cost-material BSO. Within these measurements it was demonstrated that minor modifications of the scintillator surfaces can be used to optimise not only the performance of the hybrid radiation detectors but also of pure scintillation based systems. Eventually, these unprecedented results led to an international patent application. Furthermore, as it was not yet completely understood if only Cherenkov emission is responsible for the good timing performance the detailed luminescence characteristics of BGO and BSO were investigated. To do so a very simple but precise implementation of the time-correlated photon counting method based on digital silicon photomultipliers has been developed and introduced to the community.
